Kiswinsida Oliver Gansaore

REMEMBER ACTE 02

A solo performance – and a manifesto

A solo performance

Creation 2025

Duration : approx. 45 minutes

Suitable to all audiences up from 6 years. Contains text in French.

This performance acts both as an act of memory and an act of faith in art — a manifesto affirming its political and poetic power.

It pays tribute to Thomas Sankara, who, on 4 August 1987, rose to lead Upper Volta and proudly renamed it Burkina Faso, “the Land of Upright Men.” Kiswinsida Olivier Gansaore translates the void left by his assassination — a figure both present and absent, who “rocked his early childhood, accompanied his adolescence, and nourished his youth.”

This danced narrative stems from an inquiry conducted with Sankara’s family and friends. The threads of memory are held together by a scenography made of Faso Dan Fani fabric cords. Gansaore seeks to make Sankara’s words, ideals, and legacy resonate, while questioning what his story awakens in me, in us.

“One can kill a man, but not his ideas.”

Artistic note

REMEMBER ACTE 02 is a danced homage to Thomas Sankara, a visionary, artist, and head of state who championed a bold cultural policy grounded in autonomy and the celebration of identity. His assassination broke that momentum, leaving art orphaned of its transformative reach. The work questions this legacy: What remains of his vision? What might have been the role of art had he lived? Through dance and theatre, the artist invokes Sankara’s memory and reaffirms his faith in an art that unites, unsettles, and elevates.

Following REMEMBER ACTE 01 (2020) — which reimagined traditional greeting rituals as choreographic gestures about community and coexistence — this second act celebrates Sankara and, more broadly, all those who fought for social justice, emancipation, and human rights. Drawing inspiration from Moaga funeral rituals, Gansaore explores what it means to pay tribute and seeks to transmit the values of solidarity and courage embodied by the Burkinabe leader.

A Living, Embodied Solo

REMEMBER ACTE 02 is built from living material gathered through interviews and research: testimonies from Sankara’s younger brother, a close friend, cultural figures of the time, guides from the Thomas Sankara Memorial, as well as readings and archival materials. These voices weave through the performance, intertwining movement, humour, dance, and theatre.

Dossier (FR)

Through this personal and committed journey, the artist confronts his own fears, doubts, hopes, and anger — reflections of a society in crisis. He embraces the call to individual responsibility and claims the stage as a space for resistance and reflection.

The result is both an artistic and political manifesto — a living homage, a choreographic celebration of collective memory, and an intimate uprising that turns art into a tool for awareness and emancipation.

Choreographic approach

For Kiswinsida Olivier Gansaore, dance is more than an art of movement — it is a calling. A universal and intimate language, it conveys emotions, rage, and hope where words fall short. His creations are rooted in reality, responding directly to the social and political upheavals that shape bodies and lives, particularly across Africa.

His artistic research often unfolds in sites of memory — prisons, museums, exhibition spaces — and draws on traditional Burkinabé music to channel emotion through gesture. His process combines documentation (readings, films, interviews) with improvisation around an emotional or political core. His movement vocabulary integrates atypical gestures inspired by schizophrenia or sign language, forming a distinctive physical language — a code of emotion between the visible and the invisible.

His ambition is to reach audiences of all ages and backgrounds, offering a deeply human and sensory experience that challenges, moves, and transforms.